Ray Rodriguez had plenty of time to think about his appearance in the PSAL championship game at Yankee Stadium a year ago.

“It always hits you, the memory of a game like that,” said the Tottenville ace, who pitched the Pirates to the title on Friday, aided by Sal Iocona’s game-winning homer in the bottom of the ninth. “No matter how hard you try to block it out, it comes back, because you are trying to get back to that place, that game. So whenever I thought about where we wanted to go this year, I knew where we had been.”

And that wasn’t a great place for the right-hander. He had entered the game in relief in the fifth inning, entrusted with a 4-2 lead, but with Monroe mounting a comeback. He gave up a sacrifice fly to score another run and then the Eagles stormed ahead in the sixth with a four-run sixth en route to a 7-5 win.

You try to block a loss like that out of your head, but Rodriguez had a hard time doing it until he took the mound on Friday night, again in the title game, again facing Monroe. This time, it was at Shea and he started the game. That was what he needed to get last year out of his mind before the 3-2 win.

“When I was out there, last year never even crept in to the back of my head,” said Rodriguez, who should sign with Fairleigh Dickinson shortly. “It was all about right now. I was too focused to be distracted.”

Which was fine for the first six innings, when Rodriguez looked every bit the pitcher who had gone 11-0 during Tottenville’s undefeated run to the final game. He had surrendered just two hits – the first on a slow roller back to the mound in the fourth that would have taken a great play to make, and the other a leadoff single in the sixth. The Pirates led 2-0.

“I was just cruising,” Rodriguez said. “I felt great. I really thought I had it under control.”

He didn’t. He gave up four hits in the bottom of the seventh. The last two came with two out and tied the score at 2-2.

Still, Rodriguez wasn’t having any flashbacks.

“What happened last year really never crossed my mind,” Rodriguez said. “Because I knew I wasn’t going to let us lose. If I had started thinking, they would have beaten us. You can’t be distracted against that good a team.”

Obviously, he wasn’t. He had an easy eighth before getting out of a bases- loaded, one-out jam in the ninth.

“I never thought about taking him out,” said Tottenville head coach Tom Tierney, Jr. “He was gutting it out and I knew he could do the job.”

Tierney had seen it done many times before. Despite the unblemished record, Rodriguez did have some rough outings during the season, but was always able to escape.

“That’s why we believe in him so much,” said Iocona. “We’ve seen him win for us so many times, it’s impossible to think that we could lose with him pitching.”

As soon as Rodriguez kept the Pirates in the game, Iocona belted the game-winner. The only person who looked happier than the home-run hero was Rodriguez. He had finally found a way to wipe out last year’s failure.

“That did it,” Rodriguez said. “That erased it all. Now I never have to think about it again. I’ll only have good memories. The only thing last year does is make this one more special.”